It would seem that my brief brush with a James Brown tune has ended for the moment. This is not to say that I've descended into a full-on funk, just that the elation I was running with has faded and I've returned to a slightly less joyous state. I have "reasons," mostly stemming from the prospect of a fairly significant transition and what that does mean and what it could mean to me. Dealing with that has been troublesome, but manageable.

I do want to thank everyone who's put up with my grousin' though. It took me a bit to understand what I was actually trying to say, and I can imagine that it was occasionally confusing for you. The short answer is that I don't really know where I'm at. You're all very patient and I love you for it.

Well, the IPA came not quite as robust as I would have liked, but I was expecting as much. It has a noticeable but not overpowering bitterness that isn't readily apparent but grows at the back of your palate (it's not unlike a hot pepper spicy in the buildup.) With the Cascade dry-hop, it's a lot like most standard American brewpub IPAs. It's nothing special, but decidedly drinkable, which is kind of what I was going for.

The porter is a pretty simple affair as well. Two specialty grains (British 2-row and Chocolate), two cans of LME (Alexander's light and John Bull dark), and whole hops for bittering (Northern Brewer) and flavor (E. Kent Goldings.) I probably should have gone with some extras like juniper berries and molasses, but I think it will be pretty entertaining regardless.

I dug into the library a bit to check on the weird gravity reading, and it looks like Papazian's recipe was wrong. I'm guessing that his recipe generates 1.048 and not 1.058 as was indicated. In any case, 1.052 is on the high end for porters, but not unheard of.

I've used molasses to brew a few times now. It adds an interesting fruit character to the beer with the yeasts I have a penchant for, and doesn't seem to alter the mouthfeel of the beer too much. I like it as that "little something extra" in darker beers.

It ferments well with mugwort, too.

I've been meaning to try a maple/spruce beer recipe, but I keep using the syrup on delicious waffles before I get a chance. Accursed waffles... how you tempt me so!

And I will get to it... I can say right away that I really liked the photo, but there's more on that.